Tigers lose to A's in battle of struggling teams

AP PhotoDetroit's Gary Sheffield walks off the field after grounding into a double play to end the game Friday night. The Tigers lost to Oakland, 4-2.

DETROIT -- Before Friday night's game, Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland argued that his club was playing just as poorly as the Oakland A's.

Few would challenge him after Friday's performance, a 4-2 loss to Oakland.

"They're not struggling anymore than we are," Leyland said of the A's, who had lost 10 straight coming into Detroit. "We just lost six straight."

Make that seven of eight.

Detroit managed just five hits, all against A's starter Dallas Braden (3-2), who pitched seven innings.

"I don't want to take anything from him, because he pitched extremely well," Leyland said of Braden. "But at the same time, when you're lining up Polanco, Guillen, Ordonez, Cabrera, Sheffield, Marcus Thames all in a row, you figure on getting more."

TRACKING THE TIGERS

Friday's game: The Tigers' lineup mustered just five hits against Dallas Braden as Oakland snapped a 10-game losing streak with a 4-2 victory.

Record: 56-59

Thames 1-for-August: Marcus Thames entered Friday's game hitless in his last 16 at-bats. He left it with one hit in 19 at-bats. That hit, however, was a 433-foot home run to dead center field, which accounted for the Tigers' only runs and gave them a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second.

Detroit dropped three games under .500 (56-59) for the first time since June 25, and 8 1/2 games back of the first-place White Sox.

The Tigers' struggling bats ruined a performance by Kenny Rogers (8-9) that Leyland said was good enough to win.

Rogers allowed four runs, three earned, and four hits in seven innings.

"Either way, it's all about how many runs you give up, and I gave up too many," said Rogers, who threw 111 pitches and struck out five while walking three. "No matter, how you slice it, you've got to win with what you're given."

Oakland did most of its damage in the fifth inning, when Rajai Davis' single scored Carlos Gonzalez and Kurt Suzuki.

One out later, Mark Ellis drove home Daric Barton on a base hit to shallow left field. Barton was only in scoring position because of a throwing error by Tigers second baseman Placido Polanco on the relay attempt to catch Suzuki.

Rogers blamed the inning of his handling of Gonzalez's lead-off bunt which he anticipated going toward first base.

"I was trying to be quicker or maybe make up for a lost step or two from age," Rogers said. "I anticipated going to first and he put it to third. ... It was really not a very good bunt, it's just that I made it into a hit by my reacting the wrong way."

Emil Brown gave Oakland an insurance run with a lead-off homer to left center field in the sixth inning off a "hanging curve" from Rogers, who didn't agree with the suggestion that the Tigers were lifeless.

"I'm out there probably trying harder than I should, no doubt," Rogers said. "I'm probably trying to do more than I should be doing, as in making pitches that are not the norm for me."

Left fielder Marcus Thames, hitless in his previous 16 at-bats, belted a home run 433 feet into the hedges in dead center field, also scoring Miguel Cabrera.

The Tigers would have had a third run off Thames' blast, but Magglio Ordonez, who led off the inning with a single, was picked off at first base.

Detroit has two more games this weekend against Oakland (54-61), which entered the series last in the American League in runs scored at just more than four per game.

The Tigers may have to play those games without All-Star third baseman Carlos Guillen, who left the game after the seventh inning with back spasms, which, he said, began after his first at-bat.

Guillen said afterward that his back was "tight" and he'd have to "wait and see" if he could play tonight.

"I hope people don't think this isn't disappointing and frustrating to players, because it's probably more so than it is to the fans," Rogers said.

"I don't think it's a matter of who we're facing right now, it's just this team's inability to do what it takes to win ball games, in every aspect."